How the first battle between Connor Bedard and Sidney Crosby went

Considering Connor Bedard is half as old as Sidney Crosby, it's unlikely that a significant rivalry will emerge between the two generational talents.

Despite the age gap, the Bedard-Crosby matchup on Tuesday night was still fascinating to follow.

Even at the age of 36 Crosby remains one of the league's best players, and his aptitude at both ends of the ice made playing him a noteworthy test for Bedard out of the gate.

The rookie's team prevailed 4-2 in the season opener, but it's worth parsing how he handled himself against Crosby.

Here's how their battle played out:

What the numbers say

Crosby and Bedard shared the ice for 7:19 at 5v5 on Tuesday.

That might not sound like a lot, but it was 53.1% of Crosby's 5v5 time and 45.9% of Bedard's. Clearly, Pittsburgh Penguins coach Mike Sullivan had no issue playing his Hall of Famer against the rookie — and the statistics suggest he was right to do so.

When the two centers were on the ice together, Pittsburgh had the better of Chicago by most meaningful metrics. The Penguins outshot the Blackhawks 6-4, out-chanced them 5-3, and held 64.67% of the expected goal share.

It wasn't complete and utter domination by any means, but it's fair to say that Crosby and his linemates carried the play.

During the Crosby-Bedard minutes, the teams were even in goals at 1-1, with Crosby lighting the lamp for the 551st time in his career...

... while Bedard managed his first NHL point with an assist:

It's usually safe to give the edge to a scorer over someone who gets a second assist, but Bedard deserves some credit for a nifty pass to Alex Vlasic on that one.

The eye test

While Bedard and Crosby are both centers, their time on the ice together didn't involve many direct confrontations outside of the faceoff dot — where the veteran dominated with seven wins on their eight draws.

The closest thing the pair had to a real puck battle was this brief moment behind the net in the second period:

That looks innocent enough, but Crosby poking the puck to Brandon Rust on that play helped Pittsburgh retain possession, and the superstar scored his first goal of the season just 20 seconds later.

Beyond that instance, the game didn't contain a lot of direct interaction between the two players. Instead, they traded rushes back and forth, while neither made a significant impact on the backcheck.

A good example of that is this second-period sequence when Bedard carried through the neutral zone and dumped it in not seeing any lanes, only for Crosby to come back the other way in a flash.

Bedard was consistently carrying the puck for the Blackhawks, and whenever he had a shot blocked or a pass stymied, Crosby and his linemates were alert on the counterattack. When these two shared the ice, the game didn't lack for pace.

Stylistically, the battle played out as expected.

Bedard attacked more off the rush while Crosby did a better job of maintaining control in the offensive zone and carrying out sustained, multi-attempt, possessions. That likely explains why the Penguins had 10 shot attempts to Chicago's seven when the two players locked horns.

The numbers above suggest that Crosby won this matchup, and that's a reasonable conclusion based on a close watch of the game, but he wasn't overpowering by any stretch of the imagination. This wasn't a wily vet schooling a green youngster — outside of the faceoff circle where that's precisely what was happening.

Instead, it was Crosby keeping his team comfortably above water against top-level competition. That's something we should expect to see plenty of this season.